Monthly Archives: April 2014

‘I took this picture to forget my health problems. Unfortunately I cannot play football. I’ve had health problems since I left my country. I haven’t received care here in Greece. It’s been three months now that I always go to the hospital, and I am sent from one hospital to another, it’s always the same thing. They give me painkillers, but they don’t try to find what it is exactly. It’s a great worry of mine. If only the Greek government could find a solution to this for immigrants… because I am suffering right now. And I know there are a lot of people like me who also have health issues here in Greece. We have to send a message to the international community to help Greece, for us immigrants and the Greeks as well. My wish is to be in good health here. Because of my health problems, I have no job. I am in pain. I would like to tell all my brothers and sisters: everyone is better at home. If it was possible for me to go back to my country today, I would do it without hesitating.’

We were born in the war and grew up in the war, far away from education. Our dreams are gone with war and under the tanks and bombing. To see the situation in Afghanistan we decided to go to Europe and we started to go to Europe. We arrived to one European country. The name of the country is Greece. When we arrived we were thinking, this is the humanitarian culture country, but it is opposite- everything here. We didn’t see a humanitarian culture. Out target was to go to another European country, but we cant. Then we decided to go to the police for apply for asylum. Five months we went there everyday, and they didn’t have place for us staying and sleeping, because we didn’t have jobs. We were walking around like crazies. Everyday when we went to policestation we hoped for good news. But we never found nothing for our better future here in this country. In the end, who wants to come all this way for bad conditions.

There I’m standing and finding food. As I told you before that is common here in Greece. As a refugee or anybody else lots of people use to find their daily food like me, like this way. Its not only that I’m poor or I’m dirty. But I have to feed myself, as a man. I don’t want to be in a problem or to do something bad as a human being. So this is the kind of life I can easily live, because there is no job for me. Not to disturb nobody, so I can have my daily food from this dustbin you are seing, and it is good food for me. This dustbin you are seing, is in front of a big supermarket here. I have to come early to have good food before somebody comes.

This story happened to me just yesterday. This place is in central Athens nearby Novodel. There are many immigrants living there on their own. They live outside. I talked to them. They are very impressed about this Facing Europe. So they tell me you can take photo as you want to put them in the media, and get the world to see it. So unfortunately the policeman was looking at me, because you know I’m an immigrant to. So he straight away came to me, and he asked me: ”How did you get this camera, can you show me the document?” I just showed them what you gave me. The policeman he read it, and saw that it was a document from Facing Europe. He passed my document to me and told me go home. ”Don’t come here to take photo. And you have to be very carefull” he told me. So this is very serious. Because the world should know what is happening here. That is the kind of darkness we are living in, here in Greece. I want the world to do something about this.

When I pass this place everyday on my way to university, I think about the time I spend in Patra. Refugees and migrants live like this in the street, in the parks on the ground. They try to find food in the garbage to survive. There is no way for them to go anywhere, because they don’t have any papers or money. They don’t have any jobs.

My friend was in prison, he don’t have no help. The saddest thing is that he is going back to prison. As a refugee we have to lend money to help the boy to continue his case, because the lawyer is asking money and we don’t have that money to pay him. Even the government cannot arrange a lawyer for the immigrant. There is a lot of people here living in the same conditions. He has only six months outside the prison. After six months he is going back another six years. He is an immigrant and he don’t have a job. That is the life we live here in Greece. Some people eat this as daily food. It is very horrible. I want you all to see this.

Ten volunteers from the Danish Refugee Council Youth (DFUNK) are currently in Athens, holding a one-week photography workshop for refugees currently residing in the Greek capital. The photo project, titled “Facing Europe”, is aimed at giving refugees and asylum seekers the opportunity to voice their own stories, in order to restore the human faces of those people, who are hidden behind the statistics.

The situation for refugees in Greece has been critical for several years. Refugees of all ages sleep on the streets, since the Greek asylum-system doesn’t have the capacity to handle the large number of arriving refugees. Greece has, due to its geographical placement, received a large share of the refugees that arrive in Europe. Due to EU-legislation, many of the refugees who managed to reach other European countries from Greece were sent back, until this practice was stopped in 2011.

“The European Union – including Denmark – has a co-responsibility for the situation in Greece. In DFUNK, we’d like to see a large degree of solidarity in the European asylum policies. It is important that all of us take responsibility for the situation in Greece, and that we together do something for the many refugees, who live under horrible conditions. Often without the possibility of seeking asylum and moving on with their lives,” says Ella Sofie Samberg, political vice-chairwoman of DFUNK.

In ‘ROUTEless?’, a similar project previously arranged by DFUNK, unaccompanied minors at the Danish asylum-center Sjælsmark, were given a chance to tell about the life of asylum seekers through pictures and storytelling. Two of the participants in ‘ROUTEless?’ are now amongst the ten volunteers in ‘Facing Europe’. One of them, the 18 year old Mohammad from Afghanistan, came through Greece himself, as an unaccompanied minor. For him, ‘Facing Europe’ is a chance to give other young people a chance to be heard.

“My heart aches, when I think of the many people who are feeling bad and are now “stuck” in Greece and unable to move on with their lives. I’m feeling alright, now that I have come to Denmark and have been granted asylum, but there are many others, who aren’t feeling well and who are dying, during the process of fleeing,” says Mohammad and continues: “I will never forget my days in Greece and how hard it was. I hope that we, with the project, can help to make a difference by focusing on the problem in Greece, and by giving a voice to the young refugees.”

As a journalist you are welcome to contact us for more information.

You can get access to photos produced by the participants.

For more information and press inquiries contact: contact@facingeurope.org.

Today the photo workshop started in Athens. During the next week the participants will be inspired, and provided with cameras to be able to communicate their own messages through photography and social media.

People from 10 countriesYoung refugees from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Nigeria, R. D. Congo participates. Supporting the participants in the workshop are young volunteers from Denmark, France and Netherlands.

Follow the project onlineOn April 14 2014 the first photos will be made available online at www.facingeurope.org and on social media via #FacingEurope. Photos will also be presented at an exhibition the coming summer, and continue throughout the year.

Facing Europe is a photo project that attempts to add a voice, to the European debate on asylum and conditions of asylum seekers. Asylum seekers will be allowed to speak for themselves, avoiding established media narratives and stereotypes.

Facing Europe is a photo project that attempts to add a new voice to the European debate on asylum and conditions of asylum seekers. Instead of documenting the lives of asylum seekers and trying to fit them into an already established media narrative, asylum seekers will be allowed to speak for themselves. The idea is to show the faces and hear the opinions of the actual people that are often presented as numbers and statistics or narrow stereotypes. During a one week photo workshop, young asylum seekers in Athens will be equipped with digital cameras and receive training to document their own lives, thoughts, and ideas. The pictures will be exhibited in a travelling exhibition from spring 2014 and on social media through #FacingEurope.